An Aberdeen Development side will play Peterhead on Tuesday evening at North Lodge Park in the second round of the SPFL Trust Trophy.
The young Dons enjoyed an impressive victory over Brora Rangers in the last round and Scott Anderson’s side go into the game on the back of a strong showing in the U19 Heemskerk Cup in the Netherlands over the weekend. Aberdeen won all their group games on the Saturday, before narrowly losing out to Royal Antwerp in the semi-final on penalties.
Despite that defeat, Scott was very positive about the experience for his players.
“I was very pleased with how we did. We were by far the youngest squad at the tournament and probably the lightest in numbers. The boys did really well, particularly on Saturday in the group games, when we managed to win all three games.
“We are probably kicking ourselves a little bit, as I believe it was a missed opportunity in the end. We should have won the semi-final in normal play, so it was very disappointing to lose on penalties. That said, I’m really pleased with the way the boys performed, with their application and with how they played. We looked like an Aberdeen team.
“We beat Hungarian side Ferencváros 2-0 in the first game, and then beat the eventual winners, Elfsborg from Denmark, 2-1, so it would have been good to play them again in the final. We also beat the Dutch side HSV Odin ’59 5-1 in the last group game.”
Even when they were far from home at the weekend, the test that awaits the players at Fortmartine remained very much in their thoughts.
“We have watched Peterhead. I’m not sure if they will make some team changes, but they are a decent side and have started their league campaign well, with a win and a draw. It’s a challenge we’re all looking forward to.
“We spoke about the Peterhead game when we were away and we did have one eye on the tie and tried to spread the minutes played across the whole group so that we can be as fresh as possible going into the game.
“It’s going to be a very tough challenge, just like the Brora game was. Peterhead are a level up from them and their players have league experience, but that’s what this competition is all about, to give our young players the opportunity to play in a national cup tournament and to play against that level of player.
“It’s a tournament we enjoy playing in. We had a good run at it a couple of years ago when we beat Arbroath and managed to get through the first couple of rounds. The likes of Ryan Duncan featured that season. These games are massive for their development. The way we work it, we go into the games with a really quite young side, which makes it very difficult, but at the same time, in terms of learning and developing our young players, it’s been great.
“It is a challenge even getting time to work with the side that we will put out, as there could be one or two players coming down from the first team like Tom Ritchie and you also have some of the loan players who can play, as well as boys in the 18s.
“When we do get the group together, it’s actually a good learning curve for the boys as they have to quickly adapt to what we want and to our tactics, which are maybe different to what they get at their loan clubs.
“But we have the model that we work to in terms of how we are going to play as a team, and the way the 18s and the development team are going to play is very similar. We look to replicate what the first team are doing, so everyone has an idea of how we want to play and we structure training towards that.”
One interested spectator on Tuesday night will be Aberdeen striker Aaron Reid who is currently on loan at Peterhead, working with the management team of Ryan Strachan and Jordon Brown, both former Aberdeen players.
“Aaron is not allowed to play against his loan club and we didn’t want to cup-tie him, so, he will get the chance to play in the next round, whoever that’s with! He was away with us at the weekend, and I was delighted with how he did.”
As well as the win over Brora, the U18s have started the season strongly with away wins at Queen’s Park and Dundee United.
“It has been a very positive start to the season for this group. The boys worked very hard for two weeks in Portugal and then we pushed them quite hard in the pre-season games, playing against Highland League teams. We’ve taken that form on and started the Club Academy Scotland League U18 with two wins. It is about trying to build that momentum so that we are winning games and that performance levels are going up as well. We have to keep working hard as we know with young players, there will be ups and downs, especially as at 18s, we are a young group this season. There will be positive times and negative times, but as long as we keep moving forward, that’s the main thing.”
